This is a debate which has probably spanned hundreds of pages here @ xoops.org over the years, many of which I have read. Someone should really write a "GPL for Dummies" if they haven't already, GPL Cliff Notes, lol.

This seems to be the gray area for a lot of people even though the point has been made again & again... in accordance with the GPL you could throw the XOOPS package on a CD-R and call it "Bart's Content Management Suite" and sell it for $199.99 on infomercials & make a small fortune to keep all to yourself - just so long as you leave the credits within the PHP files within the package. I'm not saying it would be ethical, but it would be legal.
What wouldn't be legal is putting a copyright on it to restrict its distribution or attempting to patent XOOPS as your own creation, or removing the credits prior to release.

You can charge for installation, distribution, services rendered, etc. Of course you can charge for services rendered in any case, as that is the nature of life in this modern economy. If only everything were protected by GPL.

But for the sake of argument...
Quote:

Just as HTML templates can be converted to XOOPS themes, XOOPS themes can be converted to HTML templates. In this way, XOOPS themes are not necessarily dependant on XOOPS in order to function, in the way of HTML coding, images, style or design.
I have converted XOOPS themes that I have made into HTML templates for static webpages before, when a client decided he didn't need all the functionality of XOOPS. It was entirely my own creation, and functioned fine as a static template, and so I don't see how the GPL in context of XOOPS would have possibly applied.

In the course of my extensive research prior to launching MyXoops, I have discovered that there are actually more than a few mainstream XOOPS theme providers making the shift to offering premade themes at a price. If a few within the XOOPS community are mortified @ the concept of a XOOPS theme club and service-based offerings, I suggest those few hold on to their seats because [a lot of] the best XOOPS theme developers are going commercial and a lot of the themes poised for release are restricted by licenses, unlike MyXoops Themes which are currently unfettered by any restrictions.

For those interested, there are 9999 posts on the subject, the horse has been beaten.

I'm on the fence about these kinds of things. Or more accurately I don't much care either way. Sure, many of these require an OS app (xoops and other things) to have any value but if what is being sold is a unique creation then I don't see a problem. I can choose not to use non free apps and not suffer a bit.

As for this particular site charging money I don't have a problem. Maybe it is my choice of browsers, operating system, or disdain for pointless fluff but this site looks horrible on my pc. Not the colours (yuck but many sites are ugly and that is a personal thing) but the header as rendered on mine is huge with little happening except being in the way of everything else. I can do Flash if that is what it is but it doesn't render very well at all on mine. That alone has me clicking away from the site before caring if there is anything useful whether free or not.

I only wonder why the politics get more airtime than the real xoops. I hope this latest storm is over soon. Let people on other sites do whatever they want as long as they aren't selling code that someone else wrote for free. I don't see that happening here so is not an issue that should be causing so much grief.

Quote:
Funny, I don't see it that way. There has been a lot of talk about whether modules are GPL or not.

There has also been a lot of discussions as to whether you can charge for GPL'd code - which you can, if you don't put restrictions on the use and distribution of it.

There has funnily enough not been a lot of discussion about how themes fall into this.

The argument that since it can be converted to HTML it is not GPL... I fail to see the logic. Of course, your static HTML templates are not necessarily to be GPL licensed, but the minute you put in a Smarty tag, you are using GPL code in order to get your template working. Since your code relies on GPL code, it is my interpretation that your code must be GPL as well.

Quote:
I have no problems with that - but I do have a problem with themes being licensed with non-GPL compatible licenses or declared not to be software at all (which I have seen somewhere).

I acknowledge that MyXOOPS is not selling the themes under a different license and I wish you well (I am not in any way trying to disregard the MyXOOPS initiative - we have gone a little offtopic as to that discussion) just as I wish that more initiatives like that can arise and prosper. Within the limits of the GPL, naturally.

Quote:

heh, Naturally.

Thank you for your acknowledgement of the "MyXoops Initiative" (I like that phrase), in light of so much would-be negativity I appreciate that it is noted, at least by some people, that with MyXoops we are trying to offer a great service to the XOOPS community.

The potential that we have tapped with Flash/XOOPS integration is huge for XOOPS, in my very humble opinion.
Once we obtain the needed hardware, we will provide the XOOPS community with the dynamic Flash horizontal menu module that XOOPS really needs, and we intend to do so free of charge.
We would have liked to have released this module in the first place, but the horse (I guess it's not beaten after all) must come before the cart. If anyone would like to help MyXoops obtain one of these, we would be happy to start work on it immediately, & then we'd be able to upgrade our MyXoopsExtensions for the masses. No takers? Then hope lots of people decide to join MyXoops Club.
Dang horse/cart dynamic.